“We’re going to stay in a really, truly old inn at last, aren’t we!” Betty gave a sigh of satisfaction and walked rapidly along by Mrs. Pitt’s side, as that lady led the way from the station at Stratford to the famous Red Horse Hotel.

“Stratford is exactly like any other little English town,” John was commenting to Philip. “There are plenty of new houses made of shiny, red bricks, and all put close together in blocks, with their tiny lawns and gardens in front. I suppose they build that way even in the small towns, because you haven’t as much room to spread out as we have in America. Too bad, though, I say! Makes a little town look just like a big city, only smaller. I thought Stratford would be different!” His tones betrayed not a little disappointment.

As they came into the central and older part of the town, however, even John was forced to admit that it was “different,” after all. Along Stratford’s narrow, clean little streets stand many old houses adorned with great oak timbers, quaint inscriptions, and carvings; and quicker than all else, the sight of these, remaining here and there between the more modern structures, makes one feel the antiquity of the place. These houses totter a little, and lean their upper stories over the street,—perhaps with a kind of curiosity to see better the strange and more and more startling scenes which the centuries bring forth. For instance, what must these ancient houses, which perchance witnessed the passing of some splendid pageant of the “spacious times of Queen Elizabeth,” think of the bustle and prosperous commercial air which the town has gradually taken on? What of the sight-seers whose automobiles go tearing along, uttering weird and frightful sounds? No wonder the old houses stand on tiptoe and bend farther and farther over the street in their amazement and horror!

The young people were delighted with the odd little Red Horse Hotel. As it was market-day, the wide street before it was crowded with people, and down the middle was a row of queer, covered wagons, in which the farmers bring their produce, and which are used as stalls on arrival at the market-place. The little hotel is severely plain and square, and has a passage leading into an old-time court-yard. Inside, it has quaint little rooms filled with antique furniture, narrow corridors, and uneven floors, with here a step up, and there two steps down. Leaving their luggage in the rooms assigned to them, the party immediately set out for “the Birthplace,” as all Stratford people invariably call the famous Shakespeare house on Henley Street.

“Is that it!” gasped John, as they stood on the opposite side of the way and gazed across at the first home of the great Poet. “Why, I didn’t suppose it was as big as that! And it doesn’t look old a bit!”

Shakespeare’s birthplace has been too often pictured, and is far too familiar to all to need any description given it here. Perhaps it does seem rather larger than we imagined, and the outside certainly looks surprisingly strong and new.

“But you know it now belongs to the nation,” Mrs. Pitt explained, “and is always kept in perfect condition. The last restoration was finished only about fifty or sixty years ago. Although the house was so completely renewed, the greatest care was used to make it look as nearly as possible as it did at the time of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564. That window above the entrance, with the little diamond panes, is the original, and is in the room in which the Poet was born.”

Going under the old porch and through the door with its high threshold, our friends found themselves in the family living-room of the house. It is low and rather dark, and has whitewashed walls and an earthen floor. This was in all probability the kitchen and dining-room as well, and one is reminded of the fact by a huge fireplace which juts out into the room. In olden times this would have been filled with great pots and kettles hanging over the fire on cranes. The chimney is deep enough and wide enough to have two little seats within it—one on either side. John quickly bent down and seated himself where he could look straight up the chimney and see a square patch of blue sky.

When Mrs. Pitt saw him, she smiled and said, “No doubt, Shakespeare himself, when he was a small boy, often sat right there with his brothers and sisters. It must have been very pleasant on cold winter evenings, to creep into these ‘inglenooks,’ as they were called, beside the great blazing fire, and tell stories. I think the children should have felt themselves very lucky to have such delightfully warm quarters!”

From a small entry at the rear of this room, the narrow winding stairs lead to the floor above. Before going up, Mrs. Pitt wrote their names in the huge Visitors’ Book. Betty was much pleased to find, while carelessly turning its pages, the name of a girl friend who had been in England the previous summer.

“How queer that I should see Evelyn’s name!” she exclaimed; “but I guess almost everybody who visits England comes to this house.”

“Aye! We ’ave thousands of visitors ’ere every year, Miss, and the most of ’em are Americans, it do appear to me! They do be powerful fond o’ Shakespeare!” The attendant shook his head knowingly as he gave Betty this information.

One of the most interesting rooms in the whole world is that chamber on the second floor in which the great Shakespeare was born. In itself, it is not in any way remarkable; it contains but a chair or two, and an old table, which holds a bust of the Poet. But its plaster walls, low ceiling, and even its window-panes, are inscribed with the names of great people,—poets, authors, statesmen, men of all countries, occupations, and beliefs,—who have journeyed here to pay their tribute to the greatest of all poets and writers.

“Whenever I meet people who believe that Lord Bacon or any other man wrote Shakespeare’s plays, I never discuss the question with them, for I have no arguments to withstand their claims,” said Mrs. Pitt intently. “I only remind myself that if such men as Browning, Thackeray, Kean, Scott, and Carlyle, who have all left their signatures here, believed that the ‘immortal Shakespeare’ wrote his own plays, I can feel safe in believing so, too. Therefore I want you to understand, children, that you are standing in the room where Shakespeare was born, and be glad all your lives when you remember that you have seen it.”

The other room on the second floor—a kind of attic—contains an important picture of Shakespeare. It is called the “Stratford Portrait,” as it was discovered in that native town, and it is now thought to have been painted in the eighteenth century, from a bust.

The Shakespeare house is double. In the other half, which is now a museum, John Shakespeare, the father of the Poet, used to have his shop and carry on his trade, or trades, for, like many people at that time, he had several. This museum now contains many relics of Shakespeare, which are more or less authentic, as well as a large number of First Editions of his plays. The young people were interested in an old desk, much scratched and marred, which it is supposed that the Poet used when at the Guild School. It is not clear whether it was when he was a pupil there, or at the time he was “Junior Master,” as he is thought to have been by some. The desk is long and narrow, having but one little opening into which a hand could be reached to pull out the books. It occurred to John that it would have been a very convenient place to hide apples or pickles, or any such forbidden articles, as the master could never even suspect their existence in that dark interior.

“You will see where that desk once stood,” remarked Mrs. Pitt, “for later, I shall show you the old Guild Hall, and the room where the Stratford boys had their lessons. Now, we are all hungry, and we’ll go straight to the Shakespeare Hotel and have some luncheon. Don’t you all approve that plan?”

Before leaving “the Birthplace,” it must be remembered that there exists a really very picturesque old English garden. In it were planted, about fifty years ago, a quantity of the flowers which are mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare, and the result is a very lovely mass of brightly-colored, old-fashioned flowers.

At the Shakespeare Hotel, they were served a typically English luncheon of mutton, peas seasoned with mint, greens, and afterwards a “gooseberry tart.” John and Betty were in gales of laughter when the shy, rosy-cheeked maid asked if they would have some “jammed fingers.”

“What in the world does she mean?” inquired Betty, between her giggles.

“I don’t know, I am sure. Do you, Barbara? Oh, yes I do! Probably she means ‘jam fingers.’ I have heard the name. Please bring us some,” Mrs. Pitt requested.

The “jammed fingers” proved to be long strips of pastry with jam between. They were very good, and John and Betty much preferred them to the sour gooseberries, to which they had not taken at all kindly.

The Shakespeare Hotel is much like its neighbor, the Red Horse, except for the fact that each room bears the name of one of Shakespeare’s plays.

“How lovely it would be to sleep in the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ room,—if there is one!” Betty sighed. “I almost wish we had planned to stay here, although I do want to write letters on the table in Washington Irving’s room at the Red Horse!”

Very near the Shakespeare Hotel is what is known as the “John Harvard House,”[B]—more accurately, the girlhood home of the mother of John Harvard. It is high and narrow, but fully as picturesque as is the nearby Tudor House, which is large and square. Both are excellent examples of Elizabethan houses, and are very quaint and pretty. The lower floor of the Tudor House is a most fascinating shop, in which one may find a really astonishing number of post-cards, books, pictures, and little souvenirs relating to Shakespeare.

“Seems to me, everything, from the hotel to the cheapest post-card, has the name of Shakespeare attached to it somehow!”

“You are quite right, John!” agreed Mrs. Pitt. “The modern town has grown up and literally lives upon Shakespeare! Without him, and the immense number of visitors which his memory brings, Stratford could hardly exist at all, as there are no factories or important industries here.”

A long, beautiful afternoon of sight-seeing followed. First, came a visit to the site of Shakespeare’s home of New Place, to see the old foundations. As they stood looking down at the few pathetic remains, Mrs. Pitt explained how the house happened to be pulled down.

“It was shameful!” she cried indignantly. “I dislike to think of the man who was responsible for its destruction. The house was an old one, even in Shakespeare’s day, as it was probably erected in 1490 by Sir Hugh Clopton. A historian named Leland of the sixteenth century says this about New Place and its surroundings: ‘There is a right goodly chappell, in a fayre street towardes the south ende of the towne dedicated to the Trinitye; this chappell was newly re-edified by one Hugh Clopton, Mayor of London; this Hugh Clopton builded also by the north side of this chappell a praty house of brick and tymbre, wherein he lived in his latter dayes and dyed.’ To appreciate that fully, you should see the queer old spelling! Well, to continue, Shakespeare left New Place to his eldest daughter, Susanna Hall, and I don’t know just how long it remained in the family. However, at length it was in the possession of the Rev. Francis Gastrell, who cut down Shakespeare’s celebrated mulberry-tree because too many visitors troubled him by coming there to see it. In 1759, he became so angry in a quarrel about the taxes imposed upon New Place, that he had it torn down and the material sold. I can never forgive him for that! It seems to me that I never knew of anger having led to a more outrageously unjust and deplorable act!” Mrs. Pitt’s eyes flashed, and her face was flushed from her feeling of what one might almost be pardoned for terming “righteous indignation.”

Leaving New Place, they turned into Chapel Lane, which borders on one side the grounds formerly belonging to the Poet’s estate.

“Let me give you just a little description of this street in Shakespeare’s time,” Mrs. Pitt reflected. “You must know that sanitary conditions were fearful then, and that Stratford was as bad, if not worse, than other towns in that respect. Even as late as 1769, when Garrick visited here, he considered it ‘the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved, wretched-looking town in all Britain.’ The people had absolutely no idea of cleanliness. In Stratford, there were six places where it was lawful to dump rubbish,—right in the street! Just fancy! Sometimes these dumps prevented a man from making his way about the town. Chapel Lane was considered the worst part of the whole place, for besides the fact that there was a dump here, the neighbors in the vicinity seemed to be more than usually untidy and shiftless,—allowing their pigs to wander about loose, for instance. That was the kind of street which Shakespeare must have entered every time he left his own house. Think of it! Some people have, I believe, attributed his early death to the unhealthful conditions of his surroundings. Inside the homes, things were but little better. People laid rushes on the floor in the place of carpets, and these became filthy from dirt, mud, and other things which clung to them. Fresh rushes were brought but seldom. The churches were not often swept or cleaned, either. Once, when the roof of the Guild Chapel was being repaired, a certain man and his wife were appointed to sweep the interior and clear away the cobwebs. A widow used to sweep the market-place. She was provided with her utensils,—a shovel, broom-stick, and bundle of twigs—and was paid six shillings and eightpence a year. How carefully and how often do you suppose she swept? Dear me! I sometimes have wished that I had lived in Queen Elizabeth’s age, but when I remember some of the terrible circumstances of that time, I cannot be too thankful that I live in the twentieth century!”

They had been standing before the old Guild Hall for some few minutes while Mrs. Pitt finished what she was saying. They now turned to admire and examine it more closely. It is a building of plaster and huge timbers, long and low, with a second story projecting slightly over the lower. The old hall on the ground floor is said to be where the boy Shakespeare first saw a play. A room just above it was the Grammar School, which Shakespeare probably attended for five years, and where the desk shown at “the Birthplace” may have been used by him.

“It was rather different going to school in those days!” declared Mrs. Pitt. “The hours were very long, the lessons hard, and the masters strict, and not unwilling to use the rod for the slightest misdemeanor. There have been terrible stories of boys being much hurt, or even killed as a result of this practice. The pupils sat on narrow benches, their heavy books propped up before them on long tables. It must have been very hard to stay here in this dark room and listen to the master’s voice reciting monotonous Latin, while birds sang and the fair world of an English summer was just out of reach. If Shakespeare was a real boy,—and we think he was—he was surely describing his own feelings when he wrote the lines in ‘As You Like It’ about:

As they had already walked a good deal that day, Mrs. Pitt found a carriage, and they drove to Trinity Church and the Shakespeare Memorial. On the way, the driver pointed out the home of Marie Corelli, the writer. It is an attractive, square house, which presents a very gay appearance, with a box of bright flowers on every window-ledge.

Trinity Church stands close beside the picturesque Avon. The waters flow gently against the rushes, making a soft music, and the breeze just stirs the leaves of the tall trees which keep guard over the graves in the church-yard. One feels something of the peace and quiet of Stoke Poges, but here the presence,—or, rather, the memory—of the great Shakespeare hovers over all, and every one hastens inside to see the tomb.

The church is ancient—in part dating from the twelfth century—and it contains many interesting monuments, but somehow the whole seems like one huge memorial to Shakespeare. On the floor, at one side of the chancel, is the slab which marks the Poet’s grave, and which bears the famous epitaph, said to have been written by himself:

On the wall above the tomb is the monument,—a bust of Shakespeare, on which the original colors have recently been restored. Nearby are buried Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, his daughter, Susanna Hall, and her husband, and other members of the family.

For some minutes our party stood quietly looking over the altar-rail at the grave and its inscription, but finally, the arrival of some loud-voiced, laughing tourists, who conscientiously made fun of everything they saw, caused them to turn away.

Mrs. Pitt then called their attention to some of the stained-glass windows. “Two of them were given by Americans,” she said. “This one here pictures the Seven Ages of Man, which Shakespeare describes in ‘As You Like It,’ Do you see? Now come to the back of the church and look at the parish register, which contains the record of the baptism and burial of Shakespeare. Here it is.”

A glass case holds this precious relic, and by studying carefully the quaint old writing, the words “Shakespeare” and the dates can be traced.

“Think how fortunate that this register was preserved!” exclaimed Mrs. Pitt, leaning over to examine it again. “Important records of births, marriages, and deaths, as well as notable events, were always kept in these books, and yet the people generally did not consider them of much value. The parchment leaves were often torn out and used to rebind schoolbooks, or to line a housewife’s cooking-utensils! Fancy! Some vergers, however, recognized the great worth of these books and preserved them with care. Luckily the men of this church were of that type.”

Here the modern verger, in his flowing black gown, accosted them, and urged them to buy some of the Shakespeare Post-cards, at a shilling each. Having purchased several, and posted them then and there to various friends, they left the church and walked down the lovely path, shaded by arching lime-trees. They then drove to the Shakespeare Memorial, which also stands near the river.

This large, irregular building of red brick and stone, with its one high tower, was erected in 1879. In it is a theatre where plays are given every spring, on the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, as well as at certain other times. The children were amused at seeing a rehearsal in progress on the stage.

“How absurd Lady Macbeth does look strutting about and clasping her hands, dressed in that black skirt, shirt-waist, and sailor hat!” Betty laughed.

In this Memorial Building are many photographs and paintings of celebrated actors and actresses in Shakespearean rÔles, as well as a very fine library. There is so much to be seen here—so much detail—that our friends only took a very hasty look about, and then went up into the tower to see the view. Stretched out below them, the quaint little town of Stratford and the lovely green meadows through which the Avon flows, made a very effective picture!

It was now late afternoon, and the sun was getting lower and lower. They did not feel like doing any more real sight-seeing, yet it was still too delightful out-of-doors to return to the hotel, so Mrs. Pitt, who always had some fascinating plan ready, suggested that they walk through the Weir Brake.

“What’s that, Mother? You never took us there!” exclaimed Barbara.

“Didn’t I? Well, I’ll show it to you, and I am sure you will like it, too,” their mother promised. “Come on! We’ll cross this little foot-bridge, and go along the opposite bank.”

The view of Holy Trinity Church from across the river is very charming. The luxuriant foliage almost hides it except for the old gray spire, which rises most gracefully above the tree-tops. They strolled happily along over the rough field, Betty stopping sometimes to gather a few attractive blossoms to add to her bunch of wildflowers. The light was wonderfully soft and lovely, and the sun had gone down only to leave behind it a sky glorious in its tints of pink and lavender, with the deep blue still remaining above.

“Now, we’re coming to the Weir Brake!” announced Mrs. Pitt triumphantly. “Take care, Barbara! Don’t trip over that stump!”

They followed their guide over a stile, across a field where the smell of new-mown hay was sweet, through some bars, and finally along a narrow, rough path on a steep bank close to the Avon. This was the beginning of the Weir Brake, where Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway may perhaps have done their courting, as Mrs. Pitt suggested.

The Avon is narrow at this point, and flows rather swiftly. The sunset sky was reflected in its waters, which were overshadowed by willow trees, rushes, and ferns. On the bank was a tangle of underbrush and wild flowers, and above, the great trees,—the elms, of which Shakespeare so often speaks. As they rambled on and on, the trees seemed to grow larger, and more and more gnarled and picturesque.

“Oh! Can’t you just see Titania and Oberon and all the other fairies dancing here and playing games about these trees! It looks exactly like a stage-setting for ‘As You Like It’ or ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” exclaimed Betty, who was fascinated with what she saw. The evening was just dark enough to produce a weird but beautiful effect of shadows under the elm trees.

“I’m rejoiced that it appeals to you so, Betty!” cried Mrs. Pitt. “That’s just as I always feel! It seems as though you could actually touch spots of which Shakespeare must have been thinking when he wrote certain passages. And it is a fact that he did often have this or similar places in mind; for, although the scene of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was supposed to be in Greece, Shakespeare allowed his characters and his entire background to be as absolutely English as he was himself. You know that in olden times, the Forest of Arden covered much of Warwickshire; even these old trees with which we are now surrounded, are remnants of that splendid woodland which is so familiar to us through Shakespeare. It was surely in just such a scene that Titania and the other fairies danced, and where Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and the rest came to practice their play,—those so-called Athenians, who were so exactly like Stratford tradesmen of Shakespeare’s day. Certainly it was under just such trees that Hermia, and Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius wandered!

“And see there where those branches touch the water,” she soon continued; “might not that have been the very place where poor Ophelia lost her life? Listen!

Isn’t that a perfect description of this very spot? And then:

Just see the violets all about us here! There are the ‘pale cowslips,’ too! Do you see? Oh, it’s wonderful,—wonderful to find so many of the very flowers which Shakespeare loved and talked of so much!—the daisy, the musk-rose and woodbine! There’s some right by your foot, Betty. But come, come, we really must go now! We’ll go back by the field above, where it is not so steep and dark. Come, John!”

So they hurriedly retraced their steps toward the town. In skirting the fields on the hill-top, they once had to pick their way with some difficulty through holes in bristling hedges, and Mrs. Pitt and the girls were forced to run away from a buck, but these were little incidents to which they were all quite equal, and they arrived at the Red Horse Hotel, nothing daunted, just as the dinner-gong sounded loudly.